Today we are taking a look at the KLEVV CRAS C720 1TB NVMe SSD. This drive is the baby brother to the CRAS C920 we previously reviewed. While the C920 represented something somewhat novel, being a small-brand PCIe 4.0 drive, KLEVV is treading much more common waters with the C720. This drive is a PCIe 3.0 drive, powered by a Phison controller with a DRAM cache and TLC NAND. The KLEVV CRAS C920 was a decent drive, so we hope the CRAS C720 manages to impress as well.
KLEVV CRAS C720 1TB NVMe SSD
The KLEVV CRAS C720 1TB comes in a single-sided M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor.
Beneath the product label sticker are all the components for the SSD. There is a Phison PS5012-E12 controller, as well as 512MB of DDR3 cache. We have seen the PS5012-E12 on other drives before, such as the Seagate Barracuda 510 1TB, though never paired with the Micron 96-layer TLC NAND used on the CRAS C720.
The rear of the drive has unused pads.
KLEVV CRAS C720 Specs
The KLEVV CRAS C720 line SSDs are available from 256GB to 2TB capacities.
The KLEVV CRAS C720 is targeting 3400 MB/s read speed and 3100 MB/s write speed. These specs position the C720 as a relatively top-tier drive by PCIe 3.0 standards. Hopefully, that aligns with our benchmark results that we will get to soon. 565 TBW endurance is a touch lower than some other drives, but it is still reasonable. As with the C920, this is a 1024 GB drive and not a 1000 GB drive, so it is ever so slightly larger capacity than many of the ‘1TB’ drives we test for what that is worth. And just like the C920 the 5-year warranty is good to see. On value-oriented drives, the warranty is typically one of the first sacrifices made to keep costs down.
The reliability of a warranty is always a question for an unknown manufacturer. What use is a 5-year warranty if the company providing the component goes out of business or has unreachable tech support? KLEVV-branded drives are warranted by ESSENCORE, presumably their corporate owner. They first direct users to their reseller for warranty support, and failing that provide an email form for obtaining warranty/RMA service.
CrystalDiskInfo can give us some basic information about the SSD, and confirms we are operating at PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 1.3.
Test System Configuration
We are using the following configuration for this test:
- Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X570-P
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (12C/24T)
- RAM: 2x 16GB DDR4-3200 UDIMMs
Our testing uses the KLEVV C720 1TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.
Next, we are going to get into our performance testing.
